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Sand dune lagoons

Lençois Maranhenses National Park in Brazil

by Bertie Allison
Researcher

This location provided a series of challenges for the Earth from Space crew.

Not least because of the desert-like sand dunes that spread out for miles beyond the horizon, but because the weather changes between hot, dry and windy conditions...

...and torential rainstorms.

Producer Paul Thompson and researcher Bertie Allison.

But fortunately...

The film crew surrounded by mile upon mile of dunes.

The park has an abundance of surprising wildlife and beauty around every corner.

From space, it is apparent how impactful the rain is on the landscape. Impermeable rock beneath the sand dunes traps water, forming thousands of stunning blue lagoons.

We were arriving just as the rainy season was beginning, to capture the habitat coming to life.

In particular, we planned to film the Pininga.

Pininga turtles seek out water between the dunes.

A slider turtle, which travels from lagoon to lagoon searching for food. We also wanted to capture the mating behaviour of several frog species which only occurs at night under very specific conditions.

Our scientific advisor, Dr. Jivanildo Miranda, had spent years travelling across the dunes studying the wildlife, and put together a conclusive paper on the reptiles and amphibians in the area. His knowledge and expertise meant that we had success straight away.

The Pininga proved to be very charismatic and great to film as it moved across the sand before sliding down the steep sandy slopes into the fresh water to feed.

But it was clear Jivanildo’s experience could only help us while the weather played ball.

Day after day we were dealt unusually dry weather.

Cameraman Jonathan Jones sets up his camera.

The occasional rain we received failed to live up to the anticipated deluges.

When it did rain during the day, it was in the morning so it dried up in the afternoon. There were also no clouds to hide the bright moon at night...

...the amphibians didn’t like this.

Our shoot was coming to a close and we still hadn’t managed to find any breeding frogs.

After our penultimate day filming, the conditions looked bad for mating so director Paul, camera operator Jonathan and I went over the rest of the footage we had managed to capture.

At 23:00, Jivanildo frantically knocked on the window...

He’d driven back from the park later than us and heard frogs calling. We clambered into the 4x4s with camera gear, lights and torches and raced to the spots he had noted.

... calling out in a cacophony I will never forget.

True enough, we found what we been waiting to see for almost 2 weeks.

Small pools had formed in the rain and were filled with various frog species mating, calling out in a cacophony I will never forget.

The sun sets over the sand dunes of the Lencois Maranhenses.

Capturing Earth from Space